Frank Biden Waiting for Ducks to "Quack" on Costa Rica Development

Frank Biden, Ocean Ridge resident and younger brother of Joe Biden, has been talking for years about developing a country club in northwestern Costa Rica. On Friday, the Tico Times published an article saying backers of the $106 million Guanacaste Country Club "hope to begin construction in the next two or three months."

"All the ducks are lined up and we just need to get them to quack at the same time," Biden

says in the story.

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If that were not enough to convince readers of the project's viability, the article is accompanied by a photo of Biden holding a tiny leather object -- roughly the size and shape of a Native American dream catcher -- and grinning. The local mayor had just given him a miniature saddle to, um, remind him of the region's "ranching culture."

When not jaunting off to Costa Rica, Biden is president of a for-profit charter school chain based in West Palm Beach. Mavericks in Education Florida has a history of financial, legal, and academic troubles that New Times investigated in a December 2011 cover story. Currently, the company is facing three whistle-blower lawsuits in which former employees allege two Mavericks schools inflated attendance records and fabricated grades. Attorneys for Mavericks have disputed the allegations; the suits are pending.